Exhibition reviews Emilia Romagna Five hundred Mannerism Parma Pilotta Complex Pilotta Monumental Complex
A painter of joy even in his name, a painter who “has always dazzled critics with the splendor of his painting, the beatific radiance of his works, and the light that pervades his altarpieces and frescoes, all bathed in…
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Exhibition reviews Ancient art Five hundred Mantua Te Palace
Tucked away as it is inside a horizontal display case—the kind used to display books, the kind that usually goes unnoticed—the portrait of Ferrante Imperato at the museum risks being overlooked, of going unseen. This is also because at…
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Exhibition reviews Contemporary art
Mechanically distracted by an illusion of decisive—if not definitive—meaning when faced with a work of art (or, more simply, even when looking at an image or a shape), we tend to forget any possible dissonance, any possibility of openness…
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A simple and harmless exercise to gauge the relevance of the visual arts sector in Italian public discourse: open the newspapers and count how many articles have been devoted to the appointment of Francesco Bonami as artistic director of…
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Exhibition reviews Ancient art Five hundred Florence Mannerism Pontormo Quirinal Stables Rome Tuscany
To his contemporaries, the frescoes that Pontormo painted in Florence on the walls of the choir of San Lorenzo must have seemed an extreme, laborious expression of defiance— that “negative Sistine Chapel,” as Luciano Berti had…
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Books Ancient art Books Renaissance
I fear that, at this point, it is no longer possible to identify the external agent responsible for Aldo Cazzullo’s nucleotide recombination. The mutagen that was able to transform this staid and routine columnist for the…
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Opinions Cultural journalism Vittorio Sgarbi
I haven’t started—and I won’t start—keeping track of the media attacks accused of having torn down Vittorio Sgarbi’s public image: Ermes Antonucci has already taken care of that in *Il Foglio*, where he wrote an…
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Exhibition reviews Bertozzi & Casoni Contemporary art Milan
The ceiling of the Bagatti Valsecchi library is right before our eyes: if you try to lift your chin, you’ll see the frescoes and grotesques in their proper places, motionless, exactly where they’re supposed to be. Then, as you…
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